SALT LAKE CITY SCHOOL BOARD BANS CLUBS AFTER REQUEST FOR GAY GROUP.Byline: Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. The Chess Club - gone. The Ski Club - no more. The same with Students Against Drunk Driving and Bible clubs. Rather than let gay high school students form an organization, the city Board of Education voted to ban all nonacademic clubs. "Everyone suffers because of the gays," complained Brett Shields, a 16-year-old at East High School and a member of the Beef Club, a social club that met last week to eat steaks and burgers and attend a "monster truck A monster truck is an automobile, typically a pickup truck, which has been modified or purposely built with extremely large wheels and suspension. They are used for popular entertainment and in some cases they are featured alongside Motocross races, mud bogging, tractor pulls and " rally. The 4-3 vote by the Salt Lake City School Board late Tuesday was the latest in a bitter, statewide debate over a move by students to form a gay-straight student alliance at East High. School board members said federal law and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling gave them only two options: allow all extracurricular clubs or eliminate them all. The issue has reverberated from the classroom to the Capitol as Utah's conservative Republican-dominated Legislature scrambles for a way to ban gay clubs without closing down such student enterprises as the Beef Club, and without being accused of discriminating against homosexuals. Roughly 85 percent of the 104 members of the Legislature are Mormon, as are more than 70 percent of their constituents. The church condemns homosexual acts and any sexual relationship outside marriage. Some 30 service, ethnic or sports clubs A sports club, athletics club or sports association is an eclectic institution oriented to multiple sports, which fields many teams and has varied sports departments in several sports, working under the same umbrella organization. at East High will be affected by the board's action, beginning with the 1996-97 school year. The ban also will apply to the district's two other high schools. Board President Mary Jo Rasmussen, who opposed the ban, said it remained unclear whether the high schools' varsity teams In the United States and Canada and UK, varsity sports teams are the principal athletic teams representing a college, university, or high school or other secondary school. Such teams compete against the principal athletic teams at other colleges/universities, or in the case of would be eliminated, too. Some students on Wednesday blamed the clubs' demise on about two dozen homosexual or bisexual bisexual /bi·sex·u·al/ (-sek´shoo-al) 1. pertaining to or characterized by bisexuality. 2. an individual exhibiting bisexuality. 3. pertaining to or characterized by hermaphroditism. 4. students who had pressed for a gay club. "Some people are glad they got rid of it, but disappointed they also got rid of everything," Shields said. Supporters of the gay club criticized the board's solution. "I think they're punishing all of the Salt Lake City School District The Salt Lake City School District is among the oldest public school districts in Utah. Boundaries for the district are identical to the city limits for Salt Lake City. Employing about 1,300 teachers who instruct about 24,000 students K-12, the district is the fifth largest in the because they're afraid of one club," said Holly Peterson Holly Peterson (born 1964) is an author and contributing editor at Newsweek magazine. She is the daughter of financier Peter George Peterson,[1] a billionaire and Senior Chairman of the Blackstone Group. , a West High student and sister of Kelli Peterson, founder of the Gay-Straight Alliance at East. |
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